What is a Rune

by Collin Cleary

  EJNAR: Brand, you’re ill!

  BRAND: No, I am well and strong as mountain pine or juniper. It is our time, our generation, that is sick and must be cured. All you want is to flirt, and play, and laugh; to do lip service to your faith but not to know the truth; to leave your suffering to someone who they say died for your sake. He died for you, so you are free to dance. To dance, yes; but whither? Ah, that is another thing, my friend.

  It’s difficult to resist quoting this marvelous text. Brand denounces what he calls “the people’s God.” “You do not want to live your faith,” he says to Ejnar and Agnes. “For that you need a God who’ll keep one eye shut.” And then comes Brand’s description of his God, which, I must note, is positively chilling when spoken by McGoohan:

  Mine is a storm where yours is a gentle wind, inflexible where yours is deaf, all-loving not all-doting. And he is young and strong like Hercules. His is the voice that spoke in thunder when he stood bright before Moses in the burning bush, a giant before the dwarf of dwarfs. In the valley of Gibeon he stayed the sun, and worked miracles without number—and would work them still, if people were not dead, like you.

  Though undeniably this is a play about Christianity (and differing interpretations of Christianity), more fundamentally it is about one man’s alienation from what he perceives to be a decadent, fallen society. On one level, Brand is quite right to denounce the vice and hypocrisy he sees around him. But he sets his own moral standard so impossibly high that no one can escape condemnation. And he will leave human weakness no quarter.

  Agnes winds up leaving Ejnar for Brand (transfixed after listening to him speak she says to Ejnar: “But—did you see—how, as he spoke, he grew?”). For a while, however, Brand is essentially rootless. “I must leave this narrow valley,” he says, “I cannot fight my battle here.” But where can he fight it? And how? Eventually, he realizes that a man’s primary field of battle is within his own soul: “Yes. Within, within. There is the way, that is the path. In oneself is that earth, newly created, ready to receive God.”

  And this is the ideal he urges on others: a kind of complete self-effacement, where one simply becomes a blank tablet on which God can write his law. When Brand’s mother lies dying, calling for him, he refuses to go to her unless she gives up her rather considerable wealth, of which she is sinfully proud. She sends a message to Brand, saying that she will give up half. Still, he refuses to come. A second message arrives: she will give up nine-tenths. Still, he remains immovable. And when she dies, Brand shows no remorse.

  He demands from himself and all others quite literally “All or nothing”: “Remember, I am stern in my demands. I require All or Nothing. No half measures. There is no forgiveness for failure.” The local doctor tells him, “Our generation is not to be scared by rods of fire, or by nurses’ tales about damned souls. Its first commandment, Brand, is: be humane.” But Brand will have none of this. He tells Agnes, “When the will has triumphed, then comes the time for love. But here, faced by a generation which is lax and slothful, the best love is hate.”

  I confess there is a part of me that identifies very strongly with Brand, and that is drawn to the stark purity of what many would call his “fanaticism.” Setting aside Brand’s Christianity, I’ll wager most of my readers can identify with Brand as well, faced as we are by an even more decadent culture. We can endorse Brand’s sweeping condemnation of . . . well, everything. We also share his intransigence—and his isolation. For us, to accommodate ourselves to this time is death. Still, we must consider the wisdom in the following exchange:

  BRAND: So empty, so flat, so mean has man become.

  AGNES: And yet, from this blind, stumbling generation, you demand: All or Nothing?

  Brand’s mistake is not his idealism, or even his blanket condemnation of his society. His mistake is in thinking that others are capable of living up to the standards he sets for himself (and, ultimately, it is not clear that he is capable of living up to them either). He fails as a minister because he is not able to accept the reality of human weakness, and to work with people as they are. He is not content to edge imperfect people ever so slightly nearer to an ideal they will never fully realize. He wants all, or nothing.

  Brand does eventually at least settle somewhere, and becomes pastor of the local church. And he and Agnes have a child, a little boy named Ulf. But the child is weak and sickly, and the climate only worsens his condition. The doctor advises them to leave the area, or the child will die. Any normal man would pack his bags at once, but Brand cannot abandon his flock—he has promised them so much, and set such a lofty example, that he cannot simply up and leave. And so, with full knowledge that it will mean the death of his child, Brand stays. Agnes, suffering but in thrall to Brand’s uncompromising moralism, passively obeys him. The result, predictably, is that Ulf does indeed die.

  Brand sees the child’s death as a necessary sacrifice: had he left town in order to save his child, it would have been for purely selfish reasons. One wonders if Brand has read Kant. In a famous passage of his Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant tells us that

  to preserve one’s life is a duty; and furthermore everyone has also an immediate inclination to do so. But on this account the often anxious care taken by most men for it has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of their action has no moral content. They preserve their lives, to be sure, in accordance with duty, but not from duty. On the other hand, if adversity and hopeless sorrow have completely taken away the taste for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul and more indignant at his fate than despondent or dejected, wishes for death and yet preserves his life without loving it—not from inclination or fear, but from duty—then his maxim has a moral content.181

  Similarly, Brand is sure that he has acted morally simply because he has chosen to do exactly the opposite of what he wanted to do: he wanted to save his child. He believes he has acted from duty alone, and the proof of it is that he and Agnes now suffer. Of course, if Brand is a Kantian he is a bad one: it is true that Brand had an obligation to his flock, but he also had an obligation—in the eyes of most, a greater one—to safeguard his child’s life. (When the doctor urges Brand to do the “humane” thing and save the child, Brand answers “Was God humane towards his son?”)

  Consider also his treatment of his mother. As a minister he had an obligation to disapprove of greed and attachment to material possessions—yet he also had an obligation to care for his mother, regardless of her failure to live up to his ideal. Perhaps he felt the desire to go to her, but he fought it off in the name of “duty.” In his cold rejection of her in the hour of her death, Brand is certain that he has acted with complete virtue. It is worth noting that Otto Weininger, writing in Sex and Character, noted approvingly that “only Ibsen (in Brand and Peer Gynt) has, almost independently, discovered the principle of Kantian ethics.”182

  In any case, Agnes accepts Brand’s claim that Ulf’s death was necessary, but of course she clings to the memory of her lost child. She carefully preserves his clothes in a trunk, taking them out now and again and recalling how he looked in them—much to Brand’s discomfort. But on Christmas Eve a poor gypsy woman comes begging, asking for clothes for her little child. And so, inevitably, Brand now puts Agnes to the test: she must give up all of Ulf’s clothes to the gypsy. Agnes does so, but surreptitiously she keeps back one item: Ulf’s little cap. But then, filled with remorse, she surrenders it to Brand and the gypsy. “Willingly?” he asks her. “Willingly,” she responds. And then, in a state of religious ecstasy, she cries “I am free, Brand! I am free!”

  At this point, I think one is tempted to offer a kind of Nietzschean analysis of Brand, and to see him as a man who has set himself against life. But it is important to note that there is not the slightest indication in Ibsen’s play that Brand is motivated by cruelty, and still less by some kind of ressentiment. It is quite obvious that Brand does what he does because he is genuinely convinced that he is right. Even though he winds up doing th
ings that seem to us to be terribly wrong, he is misguided, not evil. It may seem incredible to say this given all the foregoing, but Brand is a sympathetic character. We can admire his single-minded idealism and determination to do what is right—and we can also easily imagine these same impulses leading us to make our own tragic mistakes. Indeed, Brand is a genuinely tragic character, not a villain.

  When the play’s fifth and final act opens, Agnes has died. Ibsen never really explains how she dies, it simply seems that after her last, great act of self-sacrifice she just gives up the ghost. Six months have passed since her death, and Brand has succeeded in building a new church for the village. (The other, he complained, was “too small.”) The provost (Brand’s church superior) arrives to congratulate him, but he has some words of warning for Brand:

  Your job isn’t to save every Jack and Jill from damnation, but to see that the parish as a whole finds grace. We want all men to be equal. But you are creating inequality where it never existed before. Until now every man was simply a member of the Church. You have taught him to look upon himself as an individual, requiring special treatment. This will result in the most frightful confusion. The surest way to destroy a man is to turn him into an individual.

  Brand’s ideal, of course, was for each man to freely choose to empty himself, and to be filled by God—freely and truly, and with full consciousness. The provost sees this as dangerous folly, calculated to throw every soul into confusion, and into self-aggrandizement and a rejection of authority. Brand is unnerved by his exchange with the provost—and even more so by a subsequent exchange with Ejnar, who has returned after many years abroad. The once happy-go-lucky young man is now a missionary, and his moral fanaticism exceeds even Brand’s. Recognizing himself in Ejnar, Brand is horrified, and seems to lose control.

  He throws the key to the new church into the river and leads the townspeople up towards the mountains. He declares that together they will now roam the land saving souls, and will make of the earth itself a vast church without walls. At first, the people are caught up in Brand’s enthusiasm: “Lead us! Lead us! Lead us to victory!” they cry. But after a while, when they begin to feel hungry and thirsty, they start having doubts. One of them demands of Brand “First, how long shall we have to fight? Secondly, how much will it cost us? Thirdly, what will be our reward?” There is little, alas, that can be done with such material, but Brand persists and answers them:

  How long will you have to fight? Until you die! What will it cost? Everything you hold dear. Your reward? A new will, cleansed and strong, a new faith, integrity of spirit; a crown of thorns. That will be your reward.

  But the townsfolk have had enough. They begin pelting Brand with stones, intent on killing him. Brand survives the attack only due to the sudden arrival of the mayor, who lies and tells them that “a shoal of fishes has entered the fjord—millions of them!” This is the only sort of reward that means anything to most human beings. Faced with the prospect of riches, the people forget about Brand and return to the town.

  Brand, of course, cannot follow them. He must press on. As he climbs higher and higher into the snow-covered mountain range Brand becomes delirious, and hears a female voice (apparently Agnes) calling to him: “You can never be like Him, for you are flesh. Do His will, or forsake Him, you are lost, lost.” The voice promises Brand a “remedy,” a way for him to redeem himself. Anxiously, he asks to know it and the voice replies: “Three words. You must blot them out, wipe them from your memory: All or Nothing!”

  Finally, Brand is caught in the path of an avalanche; escape is impossible. He cries aloud to the heavens: “Answer me, God, in the moment of death! If not by will, how can man be redeemed?” As Brand is buried by the avalanche, the voice responds: “He is the God of love.” And the play ends.

  3. BRAND ON STAGE & ON THE SMALL SCREEN

  The foregoing brief description (which leaves out quite a lot) is enough to indicate at what a high intellectual level this play is pitched, and what emotional power it possesses. But it is no surprise that it has seldom been performed. Brand is too sad, too long, too intellectual, and too emotionally unsettling to ever be a popular play, even with “serious theatergoers.” In addition, there is the significant problem of finding an actor powerful enough to bring this character to life.

  That problem, and the problem of the play’s length, was solved in Britain in 1959 when the ’59 Theatre Company commissioned a new translation by Michael Meyer. Realizing that there was simply no way that they could mount a 6½ hour play, producer Caspar Wrede and director Michael Elliott asked Meyer to produce an abridged version—cutting out all the discussion of topical matters Ibsen had included, which would have been largely incomprehensible to a London audience in the late 1950s. On stage, Meyer’s cut version would clock in at a very reasonable 2½ hours, including two intermissions. Meyer’s translation was later published, but is now out of print. (Used copies are still to be found, however.) I have to say that if I weren’t aware that the play is heavily abridged, I would never have guessed it. How faithful it is to Ibsen’s Norwegian I really can’t say, but Meyer is an excellent English stylist.

  The ’59 Theatre Company presented Brand at the Lyric Opera House in Hammersmith (now known simply as the Lyric Hammersmith) as part of a six-month residency there. A repertory company of actors was utilized, including Patrick McGoohan, Dilys Hamlett (Agnes), Patrick Wymark (the Mayor), and Peter Sallis (the Doctor and the Provost). Michael Elliott had little experience directing for the stage, but had helmed a number of plays for BBC television, including Ibsen’s The Lady from the Sea the previous year. Wisely, it was decided that the production should be minimalistic, with little suggestion of any definite time and place. Richard Negri’s stark mountain sets and the cast’s dark and simple costumes gave the whole thing a rather Bergman-like feel. (Indeed, when watching the video of the BBC telecast it struck me as a great shame that Bergman had never brought this play to the screen.)

  In the role of Brand, McGoohan is simply stunning. As his co-star Peter Sallis has noted, McGoohan delivered the only possible interpretation of the role: he plays Brand as if he is a prophet in a constant state of religious ecstasy. He does not speak, he oraculates. He barely seems to notice anyone else, so lost is he in what appears to be a constant communion with God. And he seems built out of fire and brimstone, continually inveighing against all and everything, and at an emotional pitch that is simply exhausting to watch. As is the case with many of McGoohan’s performances, at times he is a bit over-the-top—but the role demands this. Brand is a man of lofty ideals, absolute moral certainty, and the conviction that it is his job to save the world. One simply can’t “underplay” a character like that.

  Writing of McGoohan’s performance in the television broadcast, one academic says the following:

  Patrick McGoohan’s performance as Brand is played at a tenor that is unfamiliar in subsequent television drama. This intensity of performance is evident in both his speech and appearance. When Brand speaks, the impression made is animalistic; the voice both growls and wavers and sometimes appears to yelp at points of rhetorical conclusion, McGoohan often speaks much faster than would be effective in any conversation and lines of speech suddenly jump into higher volume and more forceful emphasis in a jolting fashion. The facial expressions that McGoohan uses are as striking and defined as the speech that he uses; sudden frowns and settings of the mouth and jaw. Perhaps the most striking aspect of this animated facial physicality is the way that McGoohan uses his eyes, rarely appearing to make direct eye contact with other characters but flickering his eyes aside, only looking at his wife, and even then quickly looking away.183

  This is an extremely perceptive description of what is in fact McGoohan’s general style of acting, not just in Brand (though in Brand we have him at his most powerful, and also at his most eccentric). McGoohan’s avoidance of looking directly at his fellow performers is a brilliant way to suggest Brand’s detachment from other human beings. It is,
quite simply, a remarkable performance.

  Unfortunately, it was a bit too much for some of the preview audience at the Lyric Opera House. They were impressed by McGoohan, but found his performance literally wearying. The result was that on press night Elliott visited the volatile McGoohan in his dressing room and—with some trepidation, I imagine—asked him to hold back a bit until the last act. McGoohan did as his director asked, and when the final curtain came down the result was a tremendous response from the audience. Michael Meyer describes the experience in his memoirs:

  Then came the fifth act. Ibsen was a master of the final act, but he never wrote a greater one than in Brand. When the villagers who have followed Brand up the mountain turn on him and stone him, McGoohan suddenly unleashed all his terrifying power, and from then until the final moments . . . the audience was gripped as seldom happens in a theatre. Michael had designed a marvelously simple yet effective method of suggesting the avalanche. The . . . pale sun behind the gauze began slowly to contract and distend like a human heart, the darkness and the roar intensified until, following Brand’s cry: ‘If not by Will, how shall man be redeemed?’, there was a sudden silence, the invisible ghost of Agnes replied: ‘He is the God of Love’, the avalanche descended with redoubled force and the curtain descended with it. The audience rose and cheered; never have I heard a reception to equal that.184

  By all accounts, the BBC’s rendition—broadcast in August 1959—did not quite succeed in duplicating the stage production’s vivid theatricality—but how could it? The cast of the television version was mostly the same, and it was again directed by Michael Elliott. However, cuts were made in Meyer’s already-abridged version of the play, resulting in a running time of just about exactly 90 minutes. Unfortunately, some wonderful lines were cut and interesting speeches truncated, but overall the result is still quite gripping. For the telecast, McGoohan does not seem to be “holding back” in the earlier acts at all. And this was undoubtedly a wise decision. A theatre audience will generally sit through the entirety of a production they’ve paid to see. Even if they are not terribly involved by the earlier bits, they will wait to see how it all plays out. But a television audience can simply switch channels. McGoohan knew that he needed to “grab them” right from the beginning. As Peter Sallis has said, “You can’t diminish Brand for the television camera.”